Resurrection of a CFEI 100 KVA Induction Furnace

[awemawson]

Thanks for the comments chaps.

I don't think that it's condensation from the roof - if you look at the picture above that shows the Acco drain in the concrete floor as is at the moment, there is no damp on the welding shop floor and the welding shop side has the exact same roof construction and the sliding door between has been open for weeks so the same climatic conditions.

This re-inforces my suspicion that the foundry slab has no membrane.

When and if this spell of rain stops I'm going to :

A/ Clear the earth as far back from the slab as possible - 2 or 3 foot probably

B/ Trench down beside the slab about 12 inches

C/ At the mid point of the wall dig a sump

D/ Temporarily install a mucky water sump pump and try and depress the local water table

If this works I'll go the whole hog and turn the trench into a french drain with a perforated pipe and shingle and properly install the pump though where to pump to is an issue at the moment. (Need to check levels but it's still raining hard so that's not happening just yet!)

[Gadabout]

Andrew,
So why hasn't this dampness showed its ugly head before?
dedicated awemawson follower
Mark

[awemawson]

As Pete said it has been pretty wet recently, but probably it has been pretty dire before, but the room has been packed shoulder to shoulder with bits being stored. So actually not a place I could get into regularly.

Don't forget that the original chiller unit had succumbed to storage, quite possibly due to the damp, and the Induction Furnace Driver metalwork was badly affected especially on the first foot of height. 

The building was really badly conceived (by me) - that slab was cut into rising ground with no drainage provision, no membrane in the floor, and I let the contractor get away with far too shallow a roof pitch.

. . . but we are where we are and I have to make the most of it !!

[awemawson]

Boxing Day presented a 'weather window'. It only rained 4 mm on Christmas Eve, none at all on Christmas Day, and Boxing Day morning was predicted to be fine with a bit of rain in the afternoon, so time to start to solve the ground water problem with the foundry.

I decided to form a shallow ditch, or 'grip' as they are called in these parts, to allow water to flow away and past the building to lower down in the field, so I got the digger into position ready to start after breakfast.

Now traditionally early Boxing Day morning my friend Phil cuts the hedge for me on the main road outside the farm. He chooses this time as it pretty well guarantees a low traffic flow on the A21  which is a trunk road.

Phil is a very experienced ground worker and has dug footing and laid masses of concrete for me over the years, so it wasn't long before he evicted me from the cab and started making a very professional and far neater job than I could have hoped to achieve (well, OK, I'd hoped that this would happen  )

The plan is to form the grip and see how it performs - if it solves the issue very good, but if not there will be a 'phase two' where the grip gets 100mm perforated pipe covered in 20 mm pebbles as a french drain, and the pipe is trenched onwards into the farm yard and coupled to the existing field drain system (that takes the bore hole overflow incidentally)

What to do with all the spoil? Well there was a redundant 'goose pond' (the geese now being history) that needed removing - so the liner was broken up and the pond and surroundings filled with the spoil - there was quite a bit!

Heavy rain forecast for tomorrow so hopefully the grip will be tested ! The foundry floor is nice and dry, lets see what happens 

[awemawson]

It looks like that 'grip' was dug just in time - we had rather a lot of rain last night and it was blowing a hooley 

My new rain gauge said 9.9 mm but I knew that we'd had far more than that - sure enough the sensor bucket had been blown away ! I must make a heavy base to screw it to.

Chaos this morning as we had two power cuts over night - first one about midnight was about an hour, but then one at 5 AM lasted until 10.30. Doing my rounds I find all fields flooded, and flooded more than I've ever seen it in the 13 years we've been here. It's the first time that I've seen a raging torrent - (The River Brede) entering the orchard having already crossed the road and is probably the main contributor to the flood.

A knock on 'collateral damage' issue is that our Klargester private sewage system is flooded - it pumps treated effluent into a local stream, but I think the stream is now at the same level as the body of the treatment unit and of course the power has been off for a long time so the pump hasn't been working. Hopefully the waters will recede over the day and once the level goes down the pump will stand a chance of restoring order.

Quite a bit of water entered the foundry - the vast majority via the roller shutter, the side where the grip is has suffered very little so it looks as though that's working. I'm really not at all surprised as it was an 'interesting' night from the weather perspective. One roof sheet 'overlap' has let some through but that's down to the very strong winds that we've had.

The rain was lashing down - I think we were predicted 50 mph gusts and from what was happening to my bedroom window I reckon we had them.

But it's not all gloom and despondency - all the sheep have got to higher ground so no wading about rescuing them.

But I'll have to invoke 'phase two' of that grip to let it empty via the field drains.

[Muzzerboy]

Wow. I guess that is The Goose's Revenge. That'll teach you to eat them and fill in their pond!

[awemawson]

And we didn't even eat the geese - they went to a friend.

26 mm fell last night according to a friends rain gauge - I'm hoping for at least one dry day for this lot to run off - it usually clears pretty quickly.

Today's job - heavy base for the rain gauge !

[awemawson]

Well the day is improving

Water levels haven't noticeably decreased BUT the Klargester has come out of the alarm state and the pump has managed to reduce the level in it's internal chambers back to working levels despite this being below the stream level still! So I can let the wife use the loo and washing machine now 

A quick and ready weight was needed to stop the rain gauge collector blowing away again - the scrap box yielded a nice bit of three by one inch steel that in a former life had been the articulation link on my Thwaites 2 ton dumper - rescued when I replaced it's bearings. A quick slice on the cold saw, a tickling with a 36 grit sanding disk, four holes drilled and tapped M 4, followed by some zinc rich paint and hopefully it's now heavy enough to take a bit of wind!

AND the weather forecast is no rain for a couple of days - good, I reckon we've already had January's rain fall last night!

[Pete.]

Man that's flooded. The ground must already have been very waterlogged.

You didn't have to go and rescue any livestock this time Andrew?

[awemawson]

Fortunately not Pete, all the sheep managed to get to higher ground all be it  waterlogged islands ! As you know soaked sheep are unbelievably heavy to move !

I gave the go ahead today for phase two of the grip - installing perforated pipe and taking it to the field drain system that leads to the stream. About four foot or so of head from the far end of the run down to the existing field drain so should flow OK

[vtsteam]

Andrew, but that can't be happening every time you get an inch of rain? It must be from already saturated or frozen soil. An inch of rain is a lot in 8 hours, but surely not a once in 13 year full flood event under normal circumstances?

[awemawson]

We are at the bottom of a shallow valley (the River Brede) where it comes close to us the banks haven’t been cleared for years. The Environment Agency have the responsibility but recently have put in all sorts of stupid rules. Only one bank can be done each year to keeps the green lobby happy. The workers aren’t allowed to use diggers closer than a certain (fairly long) distance from the banks to keep the safety lobby happy. Result: there is about a mile of choked river that can’t take the flow. Quick growing willow roots block it. Today the A21, one of only two trunk roads in East Sussex, was closed due to the water pouring into our fields Its just office based official nonsense.

And to add to the problem yesterday we had had several days of heavy rain saturating the Brede catchment basin.

Oh and it happens most years to a greater or lesser extent. It’s actually the second time this year! Last time was only 4th December so three weeks ago. It all drains away very quickly, tomorrow there will be very little sign left.

[vtsteam]

That's a difficult situation. I guess the problem is that what would normally drain your land becomes the source of the water on the land. So there's no solution until the river drops.

Here, as a result of much study after the Irene hurricane flooding they are also recommending not to clear riverbanks where possible and let deadfalls lay, but not for environmentalist concerns, but because the worst flooding damage occurred as a result of stream flow rates having increased so much because of channel straightening and bank clearing. The high speed flash floods wiped out major roadways throughout the state, cutting them up with steep ravines, and displacing millions of tons of substrate.

I guess there's no ideal way to reduce flood damage. What helps one situation hurts another, depending on the severity of the downpour. Of course a hurricane of tbat magnitude up here is a once in a century occurrence.

[awemawson]

Well Steve these things go in cycles. When the Romans were here (AD43 onwards) the end of our field was a Harbour exporting iron !

Even in Victorian times the Brede was navigable up to Sedlescombe Bridge about 100 yards from the end of our field, but now you might just get your canoe up it.

[Muzzerboy]

Near us, Preston used to be a major sea port, about 10 miles inland. Now the Ribble is` pretty much a muddy ditch and you'd lucky to get anything bigger than a canoe up there. Most of the docks have long gone, leaving one basin that is laughably called the "marina", with about 20 boats. There can only be a few days a year when it's possible to make the journey, assuming you have a day to waste, so I can't imagine why anyone would keep a leisure boat there.

[awemawson]

So 24 hours later and a few millions of gallons of run off later there is little sign of yesterdays flooding!

(Actually this is typical)

[awemawson]

Phil rang me last night to  announce that he was dropping off his 3 ton digger, and starting this morning would be finishing off the land drain connection. I warned him that I'm emulating a peg leg and couldn't be any help at the moment as my trapped nerve is still playing up - but 8 am there he was with all his Tonka Toys - Phil likes his ground work machines - he has diggers ranging from 3 to 36 tons and all pretty modern - no, I'm NOT jealous (much!)

To get the levels he started by exposing the existing land drain in the driveway (the one I connected the bore hole over flow into) and then started deepening the grip along the side and end of the foundry. This exposed two cast iron pipes. A smaller 3" one that I was aware of that had taken water from the old settling tank (that is now under the Tractor Shed) and was definitely abandoned, and another much larger 6" one that doesn't feature on the plans or way leaves but almost certainly is the main feed from the pumping station to Sedlescombe Village. If you look, it is UNDER the corner of the slab that the foundry has been built on. They have no way leave for it so not my fault !!!!

Finding these pipes determined the depth of the  grip / french drain, so that the new perforated pipe could pass under them and yet still have the right fall from end to end.

Once in place the perforated land drain was covered in pea shingle and a line marker laid from it's end to the connection point.

Trench then dug carefully avoiding water and electricity pipe to the greenhouses, a feed to an outside tap, and the flow and return for the furnace chiller. No pipes were hurt in this exercise - thankfully.

Then it was a case of connecting into the existing land drain, back filling and tidying up. everything is very wet so the end finish is rather 'slick' but time and rain will cure that as the grass grows back - I hope!


. . . .cont

[awemawson]

.... cont

[russ57]

-russ

[Spurry]

Good to see some proper toys on the job.  You did not mention all that clay being a problem, gluing itself inside the bucket, which is what happens to me if any attempt is made at earthworks in our current kind of weather.

[awemawson]

It is amazingly sticky stuff. As soon as you get it on your boots you start accumulating stuff and the going gets heavy. By the time you walk over the pea shingle you’re REALLY weighted down !

It all hoses off though thank goodness

[vtsteam]

Andrew, I expect to see some molten metal from that vicinity soon! 

[awemawson]

One can but hope Steve !

In all fairness it already has done a brass melt since it’s resurrection but only small quantities. My welding shop floor has a load of 100 x 6 mm strips 6 meters long waiting to be made into flasks when I get my “get up and go” back, but movement is a bit painful at the moment.

[mattinker]

Andrew,

Just a thought, I have quite a large collection of wooden flasks, I don't do any "series production" casting, which means that I make flasks almost every other casting as needs differ.

Cheers, Matthew

[awemawson]

Matthew yes basically that's what I used to do for odd shapes but I like to have a stock of 'standardised' boxes that will mutually connect vertically and are ready 'on the shelf' for quick jobs. I had loads but it seems I gave them away!

For my wooden boxes I used to use sash window locking catches. Boxes were hinged at one corner with the catches at the other, so with sodium silicate set sand I could release a block of set sand onto the moulding floor and hence need less copes and drags.

Here are some 1" diameter piston moulds and cores that I did that way some years ago